Wednesday, July 16, 2014

With 10 days to go before our awesome E-ticket ride to the wonders of Tysons and beyond begins service, we're eagerly anticipating news of yet another delay seeing a fully operational system when we ride walk down the escalators a week from Saturday. Um, right?

Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said on Monday that several items DTP should have completed by now are not finished.

One area — the application of heat tape on the third rail — is to be done by the end of July according to the post-operational readiness agreement. Stessel says the heat tape work has not even started.

“It has been disappointing to us to see that the contractor has not been taking advantage of every available work window,” he said. “They could have done much more.”

Stessel said DTP has also not resolved water leaks at several stations. He said that the heat tape, which prevents freezing so it isn’t urgently needed in July, can be applied after opening.

Exactly how hard is it to apply tape? We've hung a few posters in our day -- without a no-bid contract even.

In the meantime, there's a fancy open house on Saturday, where you can see the escalators while they're still running. And the temporary Park and Ride lot on Sunset Hills will close on July 26, the day the Silver Line opens, presumably to allow its owners to forego their $1.46 million in leasing fees and continue to move Reston Town Center's footprint closer to the nearby, someday-to-be-built Metro station there.

But all the ch-ch-ch-changes will be worth the hassle, according to yet another Metro ad, this one not directed at lonely men:

Meanwhile, the process for selecting names for the Loudoun County stations to be built in the next phase of the Silver Line has begun, according to (awesomely named) website Ashburn Rising. No one paid attention to our humble suggestions during the first phase, but as is the case with painting hand railings on a no-bid contract, maybe the second time will be the charm: